The Throne of Ash

The palace of Varellion, once a symbol of divine order and impossible splendor, now pulsed with cracks of light as the Threnody's music echoed through its golden bones. The spires hummed with tension, windows flickering with broken wards, and shadows spilled unnaturally across the streets. Civilians screamed. Nobles cowered in ancestral vaults. The Crown's sorcerers cast counter-songs into the wind, desperate to nullify a melody birthed before gods learned fear.

Kael walked the broken causeway toward the High Gate, his cloak billowing with magic's weight. The Eye of Varethos had gone quiet—no longer offering visions, only witnessing them. Selan was a step behind, her blades drawn, her skin etched with glowing runes she had carved herself during the climb.

Before the palace's obsidian gates stood the last of the Crown's elite guard: the Ascendants.

Seven of them.

Their armor shimmered like glass dipped in starlight. They wielded relics from forgotten wars—each one a ruinous artifact tethered to a dying god. None spoke. They didn't have to.

Kael stepped forward. "You were chosen to defend a lie."

One raised its blade—a blade made from the spine of a martyr. "We were chosen to keep the world from your kind."

Selan threw the first dagger.

It curved midair, singing with voidflame.

An Ascendant batted it aside, but Kael was already in motion—scythe spinning, blood pouring from his palms like ink. The Shard at his back pulsed with every heartbeat. The music warped the air, slowing the world's rhythm.

Steel clashed against scythe. Sparks exploded as magic ripped through the marble.

Selan wove through the chaos, her knives trailing darkness, her movements a dance of vengeance. She brought down one Ascendant by slitting its throat and planting a curse in the wound. The body disintegrated into ash.

Kael faced three at once. They moved like mirrored phantoms, blades sweeping in perfect arcs. He bled freely now, not from wounds—but as fuel. The scythe fed on it, glowing hotter with every swing.

Then he sang a single word in Threnody's tongue.

The ground buckled.

Two Ascendants froze mid-motion, caught in temporal stasis, and Kael used the opening to cleave through their cores. Their armor shattered like porcelain. Their souls screamed as they were unmade.

Selan was knocked back by a blast of radiant fire, crashing into a statue that cracked down the middle.

Kael called to her, but one of the Ascendants seized the moment and hurled a spear of divine ice straight at his heart.

Kael caught it.

And broke it with his bare hand.

"You still think you're gods," he whispered. "You're just silence in pretty armor."

He spun the scythe once—then struck the earth.

A shockwave of crimson shattered the palace gates.

Only one Ascendant remained. The captain. He looked older than the others, his helmet engraved with the sigil of the First Crown. His voice was quiet.

"You are not meant to reach the throne."

"I wasn't meant for a lot of things," Kael said.

They fought without words.

The captain was a master—a blur of ancient technique, his sword moving like scripture. He struck Kael in the side, drove him back, opened his shoulder with a reverse cut. Kael stumbled.

But then Selan stabbed the captain through the back.

He did not fall.

He turned, grabbed her by the throat, and began to whisper a death-verse.

Kael surged forward.

With a scream, he drove the scythe through both of them.

The captain gasped. Selan choked.

And then the scythe pulsed—and the song rewound.

Time unraveled.

The blade rewrote the last three seconds.

Selan stood again, unharmed. The captain blinked—and then fell dead, his spirit shattered, never knowing why.

Kael fell to his knees, breathing hard.

"You used the Threnody to reverse time," Selan whispered. "You said it could kill gods—"

"It can. But not just with violence. It sings endings into the bones of fate."

He stood.

The palace lay open.

Within the Thronehall,

They walked across a mosaic floor made of history—images of conquests, divine birthrights, and the long chain of Kings and Queens who'd claimed providence over Eldrinthia.

At the far end sat the throne.

It was not gold.

It was made of bones—thousands of them—bleached and twisted, held together with spells older than memory. Upon it sat the Crown.

A woman, clad in dusk-silver armor, waited there.

Queen Aevaria.

She rose.

"You are late," she said. "The world is already dying."

Kael stared at her. "Then I'll hurry."

Aevaria stepped forward. Her hands were empty, but power poured off her like a storm given form. "You have the Eye. The Shard. The Song. You know what that makes you."

"I'm not a god," Kael said.

"No. You're a mistake."

She raised her hands.

The throne behind her rose into the air, unfolding into a blooming tower of skeletal wings. Ghosts screamed from the walls. Reality twisted. The Queen's body became a beacon—drawn into the weave of time, her presence multiplied across a thousand pasts and futures.

Kael staggered.

Selan screamed in defiance and charged.

She made it three steps.

Aevaria flicked a finger.

Selan dropped, paralyzed.

Kael roared—and released the Threnody.

The Song of Ending.

It began as a single, sorrowful note.

Then it became a scream.

Then it became everything.

The windows of the palace shattered outward. Every bell in the city rang. Lightning forked through a clear sky. The world paused.

Kael walked forward through that stillness.

Aevaria began to unravel.

But she fought it. She sang back—a counter-hymn of dominion, fueled by centuries of rule. Her voice clashed with Kael's, their melodies twisting into a storm of dueling fate.

Blood ran from Kael's eyes. His hands shook.

But he kept singing.

He thought of his father.

He thought of Selan.

He thought of what might be, if he held the note a moment longer.

Aevaria cracked like a mirror.

Then she screamed—

And the throne shattered.

Silence.

Kael fell to his knees.

Selan rushed to him. The palace crumbled around them, but the city beyond was quiet.

The Crown was broken.

The war was over.